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David Axe
For David Axe's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2016
Russia learns stealth warplanes are hard to do
While the U.S. is building up its fleet of stealth warplanes, financial circumstances have prompted Russia to buy greater numbers of cheaper, non-stealthy jet fighters.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2015
U.S., Russia prep for Arctic warfare
Russia and the U.S. are training thousands of ground troops for Arctic ops — just in case the Cold War turns hot in the thawing polar region.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2015
Why you'll always lose wars with drones alone
How can the U.S. government truly know whether it's winning the war against Islamic State if it doesn't know for sure who or what it's bombing?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2015
China is far from ready to meet the U.S. on a global battlefront
The U.S. projects power worldwide, but in the only region where China's actions pose a serious threat to U.S. interests — the Western Pacific — it struggles to maintain a position of strength.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2015
Why arming U.S. allies can be like sending weapons to the enemy
There are two ways the U.S. can arm an ally such as the Kurds. It can donate, or sell cheap, the latest U.S.-made weaponry. Or it can send foreign-made weaponry — Russian usually — through a middleman.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2015
Huge aircraft carrier beyond Russia's capability
A quarter-century after the Soviet Union's collapse, Russia lacks the money, expertise and industrial capacity to build aircraft carriers.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2014
Big budget F-35 fighter 'can't turn, can't climb, can't run'
The U.S. military recently grounded all of its new F-35 Joint Strike Fighters after one caught fire on a runway. There is reason to worry that basic design flaws vex what is on track to become the military's most numerous warplane.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on